


Little Motels

by trepidatingboarfetus



Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Bittersweet, Hey if everyone else can abuse tags so can I lol, Michael is an asshole but also human like everyone, Modest Mouse gives good ideas, Other, Trevor/Trisha because that's just how I roll, Trevor/Trisha has their own damn issues too, a gift for friends, but also soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:07:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29933181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trepidatingboarfetus/pseuds/trepidatingboarfetus
Summary: They keep meeting everywhere, in little motels, recapturing the past, looking toward the future, but this is all they'll ever be allowed to have.'Cause that's what they're waiting for, aren't they?
Relationships: Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips, Michael/Trevor/Trisha
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Little Motels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [becuzmdsaidineededpersonality](https://archiveofourown.org/users/becuzmdsaidineededpersonality/gifts), [mourn3d](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mourn3d/gifts).



> I’ve had a bad few days, but OH LOOK, I CAN WRITE SOMETHING SOFT. Bittersweet, but soft. 
> 
> @becuzmdsaidineededpersonality actually inspired the idea behind this because I love Modest Mouse, and this song has special meaning to me as does the video which I won’t go into detail here, but this whole thing belongs them and @mourn3d because they struck an idea in me that wouldn’t let go. And I hate my brain. Fuck you, brain. Behold soft bittersweet Trikey. You’d both better like this after the day I’ve had lol. <3 (Under 4k too! See, this could’ve gone in the adfasdfadsfasdfakljlkjkdfjkadjfk I hate myself, anyway.)
> 
> Obviously Trevor/Trisha because someone likes when I write that haha.

They didn’t know why they held onto this outdated relic of a phone sometimes, but they were sure that the photos had something to do with that decision. They never did figure out how to transfer them off the damn thing, and they were too fucking embarrassed to ask anyone how to do it, _ever_. How the hell would that be disclosed to Ron, anyway? And he was hardly a goddamn efficient accountant, much less a gofer most days. How would he know? So the pictures had remained, forever preserved in their ancient silvery plastic case, as a testament to the past. 

The past was also encased but in little motels instead of primitive cell phones which no longer made calls but still retained numbers to distant memories that couldn’t be dialed except in their head. Michael visited them in these little motels all over San Andreas, pursuing them by night to kill time as if it hadn’t yet moved on, even though he also regarded it as something altogether differently with the coming of the dawn.

They exhaled raggedly, going through the files again while they waited on him to come to meet them in this never-ending game of malicious cat and mouse -- and they never _could_ quite tell who was presumed to be the mouse or the cat here -- and rolled their eyes at an especially fond reminder of Michael sinking to his ass in the snow prior to taking down a small-time credit union from the Yankton days, post- _her_ and post-Tracey, but Michael had needed cash so desperately as a new father. They had never been one to say no, even if Lester and everyone else could. They had always been pliable, and Michael had _always_ been able to count on that in so many ways. So many delightful ways to them both. 

They loathed it. They hated him sometimes, but they loved him too.

Their finger miserably advanced through more images, bringing up more pleasant pixelated data but also the recollected despair of everything, and they faltered at one of Mikey between their legs, caressing the dirtiest part of them ever so gently that moment as if they’d crack apart at the core, considering them as if they were something so delicate, something to be cherished...and they had sobbed in his arms afterward because they couldn’t understand why the preferential treatment when everyone else in life had cast them aside. 

He had casually shrugged his shoulders and answered, “Just because,” as if it were just a thing he had penciled into his calendar. That it was _Tuesdays With T_ or some other fucking absurd thing, but that was Michael. That had been what it was like to be friends with Michael. To be in... _something_...with Michael for the longest time. 

They craved the manipulation, how easily he worked them, stretched them apart and molded them into something perfectly new every chance he touched them or planted suggestions into their ears. It was as close to love as they felt they could bring themselves to deserve. 

Even before Ludendorff, Michael had shoved his tongue carelessly into their mouth, and they surely should have felt it then or would have recognized something, but weeks had gone by since he’d last paid them any fucking mind at all, so they had been taken by surprise and melted into his kiss which was, as with all matters to do with him, so faux-elegantly bittersweet. 

And the next thing they knew, they were running blindly into the whiteout, tears sailing through the frigid air behind them, leaving a telltale stream of their sorrow as they weaved in and out of the woods, doubling back to make their way out of town to a motel they had spied on the road into the county. It hadn’t been until they were safely tucked inside under the blankets, their body still adjusting and processing the shock of it all, had they understood that Michael would never come to call on them ever again. 

They had nearly destroyed that phone then, but in the desolation of that little space, they had stroked his digital face lovingly while longing for just a gram of anything to release the pain. The only thing they had to guide them through it all were those pictures, promises of a better life...where they had been the dreams of stupid fading youth.

It had been nice to be by themselves, wallowing in that quagmire of a decade of torment. They had needed no one else like that, didn’t covet those heavy attachments.

When Michael had come blaring back into their world through the television speakers, and later after hunting down some Vinewood piece of shit using their Tracey -- the same little girl they still recalled giggling hysterically as they bounced her up and down on their knee as a toddler, not giving one solid fuck as she puked all over them -- like the next big walk-on for the casting couch in the whoredom that was The Reality Mill and Weazel, numbers had been exchanged, and they had urged him for a picture to go with it, hoping he would cave into vanity. 

“Fancy bullshit, you know, Mikey,” they had lied through their teeth at the time while struggling to bite their tongue. “Got to have one for the contacts. C’mon, a suave, rich fucker like you should know this.”

There had been such a long hesitation that they’d nearly given up and moved on, knowing that so many years had passed, the gorgeous man standing before them couldn’t be the same Townley they would once drop to their knees to pleasure in the snow after the thrill of the job because they were both so fucking excited and filled with nervous energy, they just yearned for a quick release to get their heads on straight, to press forward. 

Then the smirk had crept onto Michael’s face with that delicious roll of his neck and shoulders, breaking the tension, and he had chuckled. “Sure, why the fuck not?”

They had merely wanted the picture, just a memento to keep them company at night because they never expected to taste the physical thing again. Never in their goddamn lifetime had they expected him to text them several days later, suggesting they meet up to hang out. 

Hanging out had blossomed into drunken laughter about old times, fingers had brushed their cheek, stilled at the corner of their mouth, trembling...trembling, and they had wondered if it was the bourbon until Michael had sloppily leaned his chin into their shoulder, offering them the strangest fucking smile before mumbling, “Wanna get a room?”

And it just kept happening. _They_ just kept happening. It was all moving so goddamn fast again, just like the day they’d haphazardly aimed that flare into the old bastard’s eye, gripping onto themselves with all they had because it had been too much to process at once. Michael blew hot and cold as often as the Los Santos winds did, except he sometimes so annoyingly had to be fucking backwards about shit, so they learned to grow accustomed to the daytime chilliness from him and snuggle into the heat he provided for them at night. 

They found each other at these little motels all over the countryside and even into the heart of the city near Michael’s house. That one was notably memorable to them as there was something so wrong yet so _right_ about the proximity in which they fucked so close to that which fell between them. They spent the night expecting her to hear how noisily they moaned for him, fucking _hoped_ she could smell the sweat, dirt, blood, and fluids as they came together after Merryweather. Grinned sadistically as Mikey called their innermost name when he sank into their flesh like some majestic Titanic, clutching onto them as if they’d drift away and be nothing more than a mere figment of his imagination. 

It was thus that the truth became evident to them: there was love in his eyes, the taste of it was all over his lips, and they felt it...but this was all there would ever be for them, these clandestine honeymoons in their longstanding pretend marriage. 

They both could discern the underlying bitterness in the sweet, wondering if they weren’t better than this. Deserved more, hadn’t they once upon a time?

And here they rested precariously again, adorned out in the lingerie that he preferred, smelling faintly of peaches, waiting for him restlessly like a virgin on a wedding night. Except there was a peculiar feeling to this, something unfamiliar settled there...a sick sensation with the excitement that this was turning monotonous. 

Both marriages were a joke. Didn’t theirs deserve the time back that it had never received? 

The metal room door creaked open as they were still going through the files, and they no longer cared if their emotions were written all over their face. He could go to hell with them, suffer there too for all it mattered, inject the agony into his veins as they had for nine long cruel years without him. 

“What’s that ya got there?” was the simple question as he removed articles of clothing, folding them neatly, so unlike the way he’d tossed things to and fro back when each minute was more precious, but they’d both grown so much older, hadn’t they? 

They both were so different, yet still so much the same people.

The answer died in their throat. How could these be justified? They’d have to admit to vulnerabilities that they weren’t sure they could willingly reveal, not again...not to someone who’d hurt them on so many occasions already. 

But they coughed and tried. “Uh, my old cell phone. You know. Back in the day.”

Michael gave an odd snippet of laughter before cutting it off and staring at them. “Why the hell did you hang onto that?” He wasn’t just looking _at_ them, he was looking _into_ them, dammit. He _knew_ , oh fucking fuck, he just knew. It was insane, it was weird, it was...it just _had_ to be.

They couldn’t describe it. There was no rhyme or reason to why they hadn’t been capable of letting him go. Yeah, it was all just quick fucks between friends, right? Releasing stress. That’s what they’d insisted when they were young….

Until it developed into something bigger than the both of them that neither could solve, and it should have been natural to rid themselves of pictures of someone who had just been a fun time and regularly manipulative, but it wasn’t. They yearned for him so much, they devoured up every fucking stupid insult he’d ever hurled their direction like a dog did treats from its master. 

They’d learned how to get along without him, but it wasn’t truly living.

They smirked as they studied another shot of the two of them daring to flip off the camera around a group of nuns, Michael blushing even though the sinful delight of carrying out the taboo was still readable there. Just as he had repeatedly driven them to be a marginally better person, to overlook decades of abuse to believe in themselves, they had taught him to rebel and live a little, to lift the burden of the depression away. 

And that’s why their meager existence without each other hadn’t been much of one at all. Whenever their lips crashed now, the sense was like filling something to preserve its very life. 

“I...I don’t know. I just couldn’t leave them behind. I told you I couldn’t leave you behind, Mikey,” they confided, the words nearly strangling them as they burst from them. 

This strong hand they’d always known -- the one that had thrown footballs, carried many weapons, injured so many people including them, and yet...and yet could be so fucking gentle -- closed over the one that gripped the phone. “There’s nothing wrong with that, T,” he murmured, sounding as if he were attempting an apology, but nothing was uttered except a muffled, “Let me see.”

They passed him the phone, and they mused over the familiar memories together, stealing kisses in between some.

Their fucked up relationship, their own sham of a marriage...none of it meant anything. Just being here together, sharing a precious gift no matter how fucking brief it all was or if he chose to retire home to her -- this made the hell they had endured in their life worth something. To arrive home to this, to these secret forever weddings nights. 

They would be waiting for him in these little motels until the very end of their time. 


End file.
